Chris's Blog

Green inspiration

So going green for a business means lots of legislation, more costs and less profit?

Not always so.

Jonathan Porritt, Eugenie Harvey and the Commercial Group recently demonstrated at a corporate CSR day I attended that with clear targets, small changes and a corporate 'can do' attitude, a well conceived CSR business agenda can really boost a company's sales and profits.

Porritt was illuminating, and expounded the view that the private sector is really making inroads in reducing carbon footprints. He gave many examples, including his direct experience with M&S and Sky. However he was less complimentary about the public sector, saying they just invented ambitious targets and 'hoped for the best'. This was confirmed today by the Policy Exchange . It makes depressing reading. (Click to read).

Click here for all our news and business stories
Click here to see all posts and links

The art of persuasion

Interesting article by Ogilvy honcho Rory Sutherland (apparently inspired by retro TV series Mad Men) in this week's Spectator about the value that marketing can bring to issues, problems and even politics, through its focus on understanding people rather than process, and its willingness to communicate and transact with them through their mediums of choice.

Click here for all our stories
Click here to see all posts and links
Head First Marketing & Public Relations, Gloucestershire.

Calm down dear, it's just effective marketing!

Whatever your view of Michael Winner, his eulogy in today's Sunday Times to Michael Parkinson's son's restaurant-sorry, now Sir Michael- ends in classic Winner style:-

I advise you to get to the Royal Oak pub in Paley Street without delay. To make it easy I’ll do something I’ve never done in the 46 years (slight exaggeration there) of writing this column. I’ll give you the phone number. It’s 01628 620541.
Call right now and say, “Michael Winner recommended you to me, I claim my 50% discount.” You won’t get it. But it’s worth a try.

Two final paragraphs that any good direct response writer would be proud of.

And you wonder why esure asked him to write and star in their commercials?

Love them or hate them, the commercials worked.

Like Winner we also believe good direct marketing is about response rates first, advertising awards second.

For Head First client stories click here. For visible links and all stories, click here.

Marketing and the art of persuasion

Nothing to do with Moore and Curtis and that old seventies series I'm afraid...

This feature in T2 based on Yes! Fifty secrets from the science of Persuasion gives a number examples that relate directly to the industry of persuasion - marketing.

When you read it, it seems rooted in common sense really. But then isn't all good marketing just common sense and using your gumption as my mother used to say?

(She also said common sense is a most uncommon thing)

Examples include: -

Reciprocity- responding to a customer or returning a favour

Scarcity- influencing behaviour by referring to something being in the last few or a limited time offer

Labelling customers- recognising a customer motivation, characteristic or belief

Customer Service- using repetition to win customer satisfaction

Because- just providing good reasons why a potential customer should buy

Read the feature here. Highlighted are some simple techniques that underpin many marketing techniques.

Simply adopting them could improve your business performance and customer relationships.

Gorilla that ate the chocolate?

Fresh ideas and fresh thinking appear to have got the vote in the Cadbury boardroom.

We Brits spend a £1million a day on Cadbury’s Dairy Milk, which gives the product a whopping seventh of the total UK chocolate market all to itself.

So how do you continue to build brand values and sales in an age of media fragmentation, social networks and the whole new 'word of mouth' thing?

It appears that entertainment value rather than the brand litany is what consumers respond to best. So think Cadbury’s and their agency. The result? Throw out the rule book, get a guy dressed up as a gorilla to do a drum karaoke to Phil Collins’s ‘In the air tonight’, and don’t show the product, relate the USP, features or any benefits.

Cadbury’s say, ‘Well it just seemed like the right thing to do. There's no clever science behind it - it's just an effort to make you smile, in exactly the same way Cadbury Dairy Milk does. And that's what we aim to continue to do; simply make you smile. So if a drumming gorilla's not enough, wait until you see what else we have up our sleeves’.

As a TV and cinema commercial to start a conversation in the wired world of social networks , it certainly seems to be working.

Yes, it's fun. It's a laugh. It's very You Tube, and it is getting talked about.

But it remains to be seen if Cadbury’s will be the ones laughing all the way to the bank.

(Click on this link to see the commercial).

The car in front is a Toyota

Following my Toyota post, news today that during the first quarter of 2007 they've overtaken GM, knocking them off the number one spot after 76 continuous years-out front.

And in the context of my previous post-their goal was never to do so according to the BBC report. For Toyota quality was Job 1.

Now where have I heard that before?

We are all Time's Person of the Year now

The power of the web has turned us all into Time magazines 'Person of the Year' for 2006.

The old and revered media stalwart suggests that our destiny was previously shaped by a few, but now through the increasingly dynamic use of the internet by many, it potentially lies in the hands of a huge number-us. Part of an unimaginable connection of collaboration and community.

A revolution and New World Order? Methinks the wind is only just starting to catch the sail.

My favourite Xmas catalogue

I've received mailshots from all the big catalogue and retail players ahead of Christmas.Some UK and some US. But the one that I always enjoy the most is J. Peterman. No photos, just drawings and great copy.

There is really no other clothing catalogue like it ( Banana Republic did compete with Peterson before they were aquired by Gap in the 80s'). Peterman meantime has gone from being a baseball star, to creating a great catalogue business and becoming a character backstory on Seinfeld!

This type of catalogue and website makes shopping fun. All I get on the the High St is 3 for 2s, the same old 'soap on a rope' and Xmas muzak!

Beyond the 'appliance of science'

David Pogue's technology column in the New York Times drew my attenton to this ad on You Tube.

The most innovative TV commercial for a washing machine ever?

A little less conversation?

Not for the mobile networks anyway...

Orange's new 'Magic Numbers' campaign poster caught my eye.

It's a 'mind map' of how conversations enrich relationships and understanding between friends and relations. It's not more about Pay As You Go rates, free minutes and text bundles, or Contract deals comparisons which leave most people confused and bewildered.

The future's bright....

(click on image to enlarge and read)